What Physical Differences Between Chimpanzees and Bonobos Tell Us

I was watching some short National Geographic type program on Youtube on Chimpanzees when the narrator started to talk about the noticeable differences between chimpanzees and bonobos. The thing that really struck out to me was the following picture. Notice that the Size Dimorphism is different between the Bonobos and the Chimpanzee species.

The picture is not that big, but you can see that when it comes to Chimpanzees, the difference between the female and the male is very large in terms of body size. Then we look at the bonobos. Relatively speaking, the difference between the females and males are much less. In fact, the male chimpanzee is actually on average taller than the male bonobo while the female chimpanzee is shorter than the female bonobos.

Then we can look at the structure of behavior between the two species. There is a well known stereotype that Chimpanzees are more likely to use violence to settle problems while Bonobos have sex to resolve conflicts. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRckXzNaQEQ)

Now lets look at the study “Body Size, Size Variation, and Sexual Size Dimorphism in Early Homo“. In the study, they stated that Pongos, Gorillas, and even our ancestors the Australopithecus all exhibited high levels of sexual size dimorphism. The writers wrote it very well when they said the following “…strong size dimorphism has been linked to sexual selection, and changes in size dimorphism imply significant changes in behavior and life history.”

Remember another stereotype, which is that bonobos is the other known primate which is known to have sex for pleasure and fun, not just for procreation, compared to chimpanzees. Sex when done for pleasure and gratification resolves conflict.

Let me just give a very superficial theory and let the readers think it over. Is it possible that the human kind’s obsession over height, and to judge which male is taller than the other, as a form of dominance, is something based on chimpanzee-like behavior and not bonobo? It was revealed to me that chimpanzee groups are usually much less than bonobos. Bonobo groups are larger than chimpanzee groups.

If we then look at gorillas, the size of each group doesn’t decrease, but the idea of there being a clear alpha-male gorilla is obvious from primatologists that have been studying gorillas for decades. In each gorilla group, you have one clear leader, which is often the largest male there. There will be other male gorillas in the group, but the large alpha-male gorilla get precedent when it comes to reproductive access. (Anyone ever watch the Return of the Planet of the Apes?) – Gorilla alpha males might sometimes be challenged by another male in the group. I have never studied gorilla group pattern myself but I would assume that if the other male wins in the fight, he can take over as leader of the tribe and gain sexual access.

What if a human tribe or ethnic group changed their behavior from solving conflict through war but through having sex? I predict that the there would be much less concern then of the men in trying to prove to themselves over size, as exhibited by the behavior of the bonobos. In fact, over time and the successive generations, the tribe which prefers sex over fighting will have the male’s height relative to the female’s height decrease over time.

Similarly, in cultures where men try too hard to exhibit their masculinity and use aggression and fighting to resolve conflict, the females in that tribe/group will look for men who are of the largest size, relatively speaking to the rest of the men there. Over time, that tribe will have a large size dimorphic variation. This is similar to what many of the modern men in the “Red Pill” community would call women are exhibiting Hypergamy based on looking for the “Alpha Male”. These women will only mate with or even “settle” for men who have alpha type behavior as well as large in size. They might not always choose the tallest guy in their community (remember that broad shoulders is also key here) but they will settle for a guy who is very buff/muscular and with broad shoulders. This is where exercising by the male can work to his advantage, at least up to a certain point.

Since we can show from a clearly scientific perspective that the species of bonobos can exist and flourish just as well (if not better) than chimpanzee species, it suggests that we can as humans evolve to a different level of existence where war and fighting is not need, but using the power of sex and pleasure can resolve most human conflicts. We just need to get over our Puritanical viewpoints on sex, become more European with relaxed laws on prostitution.

Instead of believing that the only way the world works is where females always act through hypergamy looking for that single 1% tall, physically strong, violent, alpha male to have sex with to have that most ‘fit’ children, we can see that there is a 2nd option, one where the traditional sultan/harem approach can be changed to be more democratic. Societies based on the idea that a single male can horde hundreds of females as a group all for himself and not leaving any viable partners for the rest of the males in the society leads to obviously war, violent, and sexual dysfunctionality.

From the study we referenced earlier, it explicitly reveals the following… “Agonistic male-male competition for mates is predicted by sexual selection theory…Where males can monopolize access to receptive females to the exclusion of other males, competition resulting in male reproductive skew will ensure. Because body size helps males win contests and is heritable, selection should favor large male size….”

Being taller, usually means being stronger and larger. This translates from a competition, fighting pov to show that in societies and tribes where males horde females, then it makes sense larger men would be promoted more.

So can we build a society where competition is not promoted as highly, as well as sexual access is easily obtained, for pleasure reasons and not just for procreation?

The result would be the following…

Heightism will be severely reduced

Sexual dysfunction like rapes, fetishes, and perversions will decrease

Less stress overall for the society

Decreased violence by men

Decreased crime

In any society where competition is severe, and where resources are limited, heightism will exist. We look at places where there are either high population or high population density and they will be the places where discrimination of men on their height will be exhibited. If there was ever a tribe where short men were not discriminated on, it would most likely be in a society where male-male competition is discouraged, resources are relatively abundance, and sexual access is easy. Of course, we can look at places like Scandinavia (Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Netherlands) which have all those things, but I still hear many cases by shorter men where they are severely discriminated against by females in the sexual selection process. Of course, we already know that men from Scandinavia is stereotypically among the tallest in the world.

One thought on “What Physical Differences Between Chimpanzees and Bonobos Tell Us”

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